RAM Upgrade- Which Slot For Best Result and Why My Score is Lower After Upgrading

The Cause
Hye All, So i've decided to upgrade my Ram for a better performance and speed on my Imac. I mainly use my workstation for editing purpose, heavily on Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom , After Effect& Premier.

The Plan
From total (2x2x2x2) 8GB to (2x2x8x8) 20GB.

The Upgrade

Default Ram : 2GB Samsung DDR3 x2pcs
New Additional Ram: 8GB Kingston KTA DDR3 pc1333 x2pcs

The Issue
I have spent my whole night googling , read forums to determine which combination work best , how to ensure the best performance by configuring the Dual Channel setup. Unfortunately, after too much reading, i didnt get what i was looking for. In general , i found 4 major suggestion- we have to put the ram size group, according to the :-

1)Bank ( bank 0 & 1 )
2)Dimm ( dimm 0 & 1)
3)original empty slot
4)Move default ram to empty slot and put the new one to the default slot

By far (July 11,2014) , This is the most complete ( read:the most intense) Thread ive found >> CLICK HERE

After finished reading to the last 5 pages, i still didnt find the answer i was looking for, So i decide to waste my sleeping time, try all the suggestion, and see what work best.

IMPORTANT
This only represent my own experiment and the Result MAY NOT be the same as everyone else. Please don't use this as your guide, as the test may lack all the necessary steps to ensure consistency between the result.

Benchmarking Tools
I use Xbench and GeekBench as my benchmarking tools

MY PROCEDURE
1-Replace Ram & Switch On
2-Open System Report & Screen Cap
3-Run GeekBench , Screen Capt Result , Close
4-Run Xbench , Screen Capt, Close
5-I REPEAT STEP 3 & 4 alternately for at least 3 times, and choose the best score as my final guide.
6-Shut down and repeat step 1


THE SETUP

RAM SLOT GUIDE: TOP LEFT - TOP RIGHT - BOTTOM LEFT -BOTTOM RIGHT

A- NO PICTURE ( Original default ram of 2-2-2-2 ; 8GB )


B- 2-2-8-8


C- 2-8-2-8


D- 8-2-8-2


E- 8-8-2-2


CONTINUE BELOW

CONTINUE ..

THE RESULT
I have to be honest with you,I am quite surprised and a bit disappointed with the score result after upgrading, and it makes no sense for me as the result after upgrading from 8GB to 20GB, every combination of 20GB make a JUST A TINY NUMBERS , VS the Default 8GB benchmark score.

Some people said that Benchmarking are waste of time and we cant rely on the score. But at some point i do believe that at least, just at least-i could achieve at least double or slightly better score ;considering the amount of money & time i spent for this simple upgrade.

So here is the result.

1) GEEKBENCH SCORE




2) GEEKBENCH SCORE (MEMORY)



3) XBENCH SCORE



THE VERDICT

As you can see here, The default 8GB Ram giving a better score than all the 20GB setup. ( CAN SOMEONE PLEASE, ENLIGHTEN ME, WHY ? )

And for the best combination of 2 pcs 8Gb and 2 pcs 2GB for a total of 20GB Memory, the SETUP B return the highest score on both GeekBench and Xbench.

My personal conclusion is -
Leave the default ram As is ( oh btw , my default ram as shown below- ORIGINALLY 2PCS 2GB, that afterward i add another 2pcs 2gb few years ago )



and put the new stick to the default empty slot. [2 - 2 - 8 - 8]


phew. So thats my current setup for the time being. So please, can somebody explain WHY this setup work best for my imac, and why the score is lower than original 8GB .


with that, THANK YOU VERY MUCH.

nebo1ss said:

Try the B configuration but remove the two 2 Gig memory blocks so that you only have 16 Gig in the machine. See what results you get.

Click to expand...

Oh yea, never thought of that before. i'll do that and update the result later. Thanks